Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2014-01-29/Arbitration report
Kafziel case closed; Kww admonished by motion
Kafziel case closed
The Kafziel case has been closed, with Kafziel losing his administrator status as a result. The case originated from a request for arbitration filed in December 2013, in which Hasteur alleged that Kafziel had inappropriately deleted pending entries in the Articles for Creation backlog. Unusually, Kafziel chose not to contest the allegations during the arbitration proceeding and instead announced his retirement, writing that "there's nothing anyone here can say or do to make me apologize for anything I did, or agree to do anything differently, and there's nothing short of that that will please people like [Hasteur]". In a split vote, the Arbitration Committee found this action to be in violation of the administrator accountability policy:
While addressing concerns regarding his edits at Articles for Creation Kafziel acted in a hostile and indifferent manner. When concerns were brought before ArbCom, he declined to submit substantive evidence explaining his actions, a breach of administrator accountability.
and voted to strip Kafziel of his administrator status:
For conduct unbecoming an administrator by failing to respond appropriately, respectfully and civilly to good faith enquiries about his administrative actions, Kafziel is desysopped and may regain the tools via a request for adminship. The user may not seek advanced positions in an alternative account unless he links such account to his Kafziel account.
Hasteur, for his part, did not leave the proceeding unscathed, receiving an admonishment for his conduct:
For his battlefield mentality in areas relating to Articles for Creation, Hasteur is admonished.
Kww admonished
In a split ten-to-four vote, the Arbitration Committee adopted a summary motion admonishing administrator Kww for changing the protection level on the "Conventional PCI" article, which had been protected by the Wikimedia Foundation's Philippe Beaudette in July 2013 as an "office action":
Kww is admonished for knowingly modifying a clearly designated Wikimedia Foundation Office action, which he did in the absence of any emergency and without any form of consultation, and is warned that he is subject to summary desysopping if he does this again.
Kww had requested arbitration of the dispute between Philippe and himself on January 24, claiming that Philippe had "restored the protection level to an illegitimate level" and requesting that the Committee "[make] clear to Philippe that he must choose one of the permitted protection levels", but the Committee ultimately declined to do so:
Because the request for arbitration filed by Kww seeks review of Office actions, it is outside the purview of the Arbitration Committee and accordingly the request is declined.
New and ongoing cases
- Austrian economics: The Austrian economics case was opened on January 25 after a unanimous vote to accept by nine arbitrators. The case originates from a request for arbitration filed by A Quest For Knowledge, who alleged that the existing community sanctions on "Austrian economics" and related articles had failed to curb the ongoing disputes there and asked that the Committee impose discretionary sanctions on the topic. Evidence in the case will be accepted through February 8.
- Gun control: The Gun control case, which was opened on January 5, has entered the workshop phase. The case arose from a request for arbitration filed by Gaijin42, who alleged that disputes about including material about Nazi Germany in the "gun control" article had become intractable and required the Committee's intervention to resolve.
Other news
- Rschen7754 promoted: The Arbitration Committee announced the promotion of Rschen7754 to full arbitration clerk. Rschen7754 had served as a trainee clerk since September 2013.
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